FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Dec. 10, 2025
Media Contact: Melissa Garriga | [email protected]
CODEPINK Statement on U.S. Seizure of Oil Tanker off the Coast of Venezuela: Call It What It Is: 21st-Century Piracy
The Trump regime has crossed another line in its relentless campaign against Venezuela: seizing a massive, fully loaded Venezuelan oil tanker in Caribbean waters. This is 21st-century piracy, plain and simple, and it’s being carried out by a government that has decided bullying an entire country is acceptable foreign policy.
The tanker seizure is not an isolated incident. It comes after months of escalating U.S. aggression in the region. U.S. forces have launched more than ten strikes on small boats in the Caribbean, killing at least 87 people. And now the Trump regime has deployed warships to surround and confiscate one of the biggest oil tankers as it transported Venezuelan crude to Cuba.
For years, Washington has illegally sanctioned Venezuelan oil, and while it once seized Iranian fuel bound for the country, it had never gone as far as to intercept and confiscate a fully loaded Venezuelan supertanker until now. The stolen vessel is capable of carrying more than 300,00 tons of crude. This is exactly the kind of prize that foreign policy hawks begged Trump to seize during his first term. Now, with a second-term team built around hardliners like Marco Rubio, that long-planned escalation has finally become policy.
This maritime aggression is part of a much wider campaign of economic coercion and outright theft that Venezuela has endured for years. Washington has seized the country’s external assets, freezing billions abroad, taking CITGO, and even confiscating a Venezuelan government plane. Now that same pattern is playing out at sea: U.S. forces intercepting and taking the very tankers that carry Venezuela’s oil. After stripping the country of one of its largest revenue sources, the Trump regime has simply expanded the operation on land, in the air, and across the Caribbean. It’s all the same strategy: starve the country economically, attack it militarily when politically convenient, and bully it into submission.
This attack doesn’t just hurt Venezuela; it hurts Cuba, too. By seizing a tanker carrying crude to the island, the Trump regime is deliberately targeting the Cuban people, who already endure punishing US sanctions and fuel shortages.
CODEPINK condemns this dangerous escalation. The U.S. must immediately release the seized tanker and cease its blockade in the Caribbean. Latin America is not Washington’s playground; it's a Zone of Peace. The people of the region deserve sovereignty and dignity.
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